


Cold

by MagicMage



Series: Dragon Age Fiction [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 23:32:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13398600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicMage/pseuds/MagicMage
Summary: Lavellan has been attacked by a dragon, and is suffering from the remnants of the magic.





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this a few years ago. 
> 
> Completely forgot about it, but it's not terrible, so here you go. Dated: Sept 20th 2015

Cold. So cold.

Chilled to the bone by a dragon, now slain, but the chill won’t go. Lavellan sits, huddled too close to the fire he didn’t help make with a thick blanket over his shoulders and around him.

Varric sits on the other side of the campfire cleaning Bianca and humming terribly to himself.

He shivers, curls his knees to his chest and looks out into the woods for the tenth time.

“Well, you know, if you’d gone to get dinner _he_ wouldn’t have had to go find it,” Varric tells him, raising a brow at him and looking entertained.

“Cold,” he mutters, pulling the blanket tighter around himself and shivering again. “L-Like the fire ones better.”

“Really? Because I seem to remember you cursing the last one black and blue, that burn you got was pretty fantastic.”

Stupid Varric. Telling him things because he has a fantastic memory because he writes everything down. Stupid Varric. He still has a scar on his belly from the last one.

“How goes getting the _ice_ out of Bianca’s chamber Varric?” he asks, raising his brow and trying to look cocky as he speaks, but _cold_.

“Yeah, it’s going about as well as you getting the ice out of your _bones_.”

At least he didn’t say heart, he could have said heart. So he chuckles, and watches as Varric throws another log on the fire and it climbs higher with great gratitude.

He shivers again, but he knows the fire didn’t need that log, and that Varric is just trying to help. He manages a weak smile across the fire before he tugs the blanket tighter around himself.

“That bad?” Varric asks, sounding concerned. Varric always seems like he’s trying to stay at arm’s length, which he really can’t blame him for after what happened with Hawke and Kirkwall, but he still cares despite it all and Lavellan appreciates it. Varric looks up at something behind him, he could turn around to look, but he’s _cold_. “Kid’s back.”

Lavellan looks up then, turns around and looks mildly concerned. “You left Iron Bull and Dorian together alone?”

“Jealous, no, not jealous. Why does he keep looking everywhere, at everyone, but me?” Cole mutters, and then sits down next to him. Lavellan sighs, and thinks that his cheeks would have probably gone bright red were he not freezing. He glances over at Varric who goes back to cleaning Bianca and pretends he didn’t hear. “Shivering, cold, so cold…the blanket…didn’t help?”

“No, it’s a great help Cole, I’d probably be an actual icicle without it,” Lavellan tells him. For some reason he just doesn’t like when Cole feels badly about being unable to help. Like a child who offers a flower to the Keeper because she thinks it will heal the heart broken with loss, it’s best for the Keeper to smile and accept it even though it still hurts or else the kindness will die just like the one who was lost.

“I wouldn’t like you to be an icicle,” Cole tells him, rubbing a hand up and down his arm probably in an effort to bring blood to his freezing skin.

“That makes two of us.”

“Make that three. Without your spirit-sword…thing, I would have been dragon food a few times there,” Varric agrees, finally setting Bianca on his back and giving her time to thaw out rather than playing with her until she breaks. “Moving around may help.”

“You think moving around, when I’ve been sitting next to a fire for the past ten minutes to no avail, will help?” Lavellan asks, raising an eyebrow at Varric who shrugs at him.

“You’re a better hunter than Tiny or Sparkler and I really want dinner.”

Just because the Dalish teach everyone who can hold a bow how to hunt... Just because he brings said bow with him everywhere… He never wanted to be a hunter. Well then again he never wanted to be a blasted Herald of Andraste or an Inquisitor either.

Things don’t seem to like going his way.

“ _He’s_ trying to turn me into an icicle,” he grumbles, rubbing his hands together and holding them closer to the fire.

Cole’s eyes dart to his hands, he seems to consider whether or not he should take hold of them and rub them as well, but he doesn’t. He’s been doing that more now, considering whether or not he should do something before he does it.

He hears them coming back before they are, Iron Bull is loud and Dorian is louder because he’s telling him that he’s done something terribly wrong, that “it’s” ruined, positively ruined, or something. Lavellan is sure that Dorian isn’t wrong, Bull is a terrible hunter. But he can’t bring himself to get up and check.

Cold.

Cole holds something just inside his peripheral vision. He turns and looks as he hears Iron Bull snap something wooden under his steps.

“Gloves?” he asks, noting that Cole is no longer wearing his. “Cole you don’t have to.”

“Take them. Can’t touch, can’t warm, I…you won’t like that, but I can give you these, they are warm,” Cole tells him, looking at him with earnest, imploring eyes.

Lavellan smiles, takes the gloves and tugs them on. They’re a bit too big, Cole’s fingers are a bit thicker than his dainty elven ones, but they _are_ warm. He pulls his arms back under the blanket and pulls the blanket tighter around him.

“Thanks Cole.”

“Still cold,” Cole mutters softly, giving what looks like a pout and then getting up and wandering off again. He does that, no one tends to question it, they never used to notice when he did it.

“Inquisitor, he’s ruined our dinner,” Dorian tells him dramatically as soon as they are within the edge of the camp. Dorian only calls him Inquisitor when he’s in a terrible mood, or when he is trying to win his favour before someone else can.

Lavellan turns, misses the warmth on his face and body, and shivers. “I’m sure it can’t be _that_ bad, what did he do?”

“Come and look at this.”

He’s cold. He glances over at Varric, who just raises an eyebrow at him and looks mildly sympathetic. Iron Bull comes into view as he stands, abandons the fire and feels only warmth in the gloves which Cole gave him.

He follows the pair into the forest, his eyes quickly adjusting to the almost dark. The trees block out the sun, making it seem more night than it is. As they trek along the path to whatever mess Iron Bull has made, he shivers.

He thinks that the dragon’s ice breath probably has some residual magic left in it. He feels like the ice bolt that hit him square in the chest earlier, knocking the air out of him for a good few minutes, has moved in. He feels it like a lump. Maybe Varric should have said heart earlier.

Iron Bull’s warm, large, hand settles on his back. For a moment he doesn’t feel as cold.

“Still cold Boss?” he asks.

Lavellan purses his lips, he _hates_ that name. There’s a chill to it not unsimilar to the chill spreading through his body. “No, I’m fine,” he lies, forcing a lopsided smile up at his lover and quickening his stride to walk beside Dorian who is grumbling to himself.

“I _said_ to be careful, but was he?” Dorian asks no one.

“If there’s anything to go by with your current mood Dorian, I have to assume he wasn’t,” Lavellan jokes, but his face falls when they come upon the outright mess that is waiting for them at the end of the path.

“He wasn’t,” Dorian confirms sourly.

Lavellan sputters, raising his brows at what may have at some point been their dinner, what is now a rather unsalvageable carcass, in several unsalvageable pieces, and then turns around to motion with confusion back at the poor beast while looking incredulously at the Iron Bull who simply shrugs.

“Y-You know what?” Lavellan asks, stuttering because his teeth are trying to chatter. “I’ll take care of dinner myself.” He stomps around Iron Bull and away from Dorian who he’s fairly sure says something about how he told Bull that this would be his reaction.

He doesn’t care. He’s too cold to care. He wants to be sitting around the fire with the blanket around him and everyone else can take care of everything. For once.

The brisk walk back to the fire is shorter, partially because he just wants to get it over with, and partially because he was hoping that the pace would warm him up.

Varric looks up pleasantly as he approaches, but his smile fades a tad when he sees the glower on Lavellan’s face.

“Not good?” Varric asks, even though he doesn’t need to.

“Ask them,” Lavellan replies stiffly, roughly picking up his bow and quiver and continuing right past Varric and into the forest behind him. Hopefully Dorian and Iron Bull haven’t scared off every animal in the forest.

“Not good,” Varric concludes behind him. “I could come with you, you know,” he adds, but Lavellan wants to be alone so that he can freeze, and catch dinner, and do everything.

He manages, through some stroke of luck, to catch a pair of rabbits. But he’s freezing by the time he’s heading back to camp. He would have expected, with the activity and with the effort that sneaking around takes, that he would have warmed up by now.

Instead he feels colder than ever.

Cole materialises next to him, whether he was previously invisible or if he just popped out of a shadow Lavellan is too tired to consider.

“It’s a g-good thing you don’t have t-to eat C-Cole because I d-don’t think you would like “hurting” the an-nimals,” Lavellan attempts a joke, but he’s shivering so hard he thinks he’d probably giving himself a concussion. “S-Suppose you’d be a vegetarian.”

“Plants have feelings too,” Cole tells him plainly, watching him with great concern.

“Right,” he snaps. He doesn’t think he meant to do that, and he does think that Cole makes a face like he’s been physically hit. He feels bad, just about the only part of him that feels even remotely warm is his hands. He’s fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to feel his fingers if it weren’t for the warm, fur lining of Cole’s gloves. He wouldn’t have been able to pull the string on his bow, or hold the rabbits he’s caught.

He can see the fire, he thinks about having to prepare and cook the beasts in his hands. He sighs.

“Too heavy, too cold. Freezing…” Cole mutters, staring down at his bare fingers as he wrings them. Lavellan sighs again. “Heavy,” Cole repeats.

“Don’t…Don’t worry about it,” Lavellan replies, uselessly he knows. Cole will worry, because he _knows_.

Varric is suddenly in front of him, and he looks up to see the fire he’s wanted to be beside a few short metres away.

“You know, I’m not great at cooking and crap, but Hawke was really bad at figuring out rations and we had to tough it out a few times over in the Free Marches…”

Lavellan raises an eyebrow at him, and then breaks down in shivers again. Varric groans.

“Oh, give me the damn rabbits Lavellan.” The rabbits are more taken from him than offered, but he doesn’t complain as Varric ambles back over to the fire to start whatever he has planned for them.

“You’re too cold,” Cole tells him again, though last time may have been less of a telling and more of a rambling. Lavellan looks up in time for Cole to drape his jacket over his shoulders.

“Cole, you h-have to stop giving me your clothes. Y-You’ll be naked if you don’t.”

He thinks Cole ignores him as he steps forward into the clearing where their camp is and looks over his shoulder at him. “Come. Sit by the fire.”

He shakes his head slightly, tugging Cole’s jacket so it won’t slip off and following him to the fire. Dorian and Iron Bull are sitting by the fire now, Bull on the ground and Dorian on a stump which he’s turned over so he doesn’t have to ‘sit in the filth’.

Dorian looks up first, Bull is sharpening his sword. The alarm that Dorian shows upon seeing him trumps the concern that Cole has been showing.

“Lavellan,” he gasps standing and getting Bull’s attention. Large horns sweep to the side as he turns to look up at him, but Dorian’s already blocking his view. Lavellan feels cut off from the fire. “You need to see a healer, don’t you,” Dorian says, doesn’t ask.

“’m fine,” Lavellan mutters, shaking his head.

“Your lips are _blue_ ,” Dorian tells him forcibly, taking hold of his shoulder and steering him to sit on his stump.

“Dorian,” Lavellan complains, but leans towards the warmth of the fire. “Where are you going to sit?”

Cole’s jacket is taken from his shoulders, his bow and quiver taken from him before it’s put back and the blanket is placed back around him. Dorian’s standing within his view, a quick glance up shows him that Cole is the one doting over him. The blanket is warm, Lavellan thinks it was kept by the fire.

For his sake?

A glance up at Varric, who is watching him intently as he works, tells him yes.

“I’ll stand,” Dorian tells him. “We need to keep you off the ground. You’ll freeze to death.”

“No,” Cole mutters somewhere behind and to the right of him.

“Look, I-I appreciate your concern but-“

“No buts,” Dorian interrupts. “I don’t want to have to explain to all of Skyhold why the Inquisitor died on the Tevinter’s watch.”

Lavellan chuckles, genuinely thinks it’s funny. “Mother Giselle would hate you even more then.”

“Precisely my point, the last thing I need is an angry sister of the Chantry blaming me for the death of—“

“All right Dorian,” Iron Bull forces his way into the conversation. He stands, crowding Dorian out of the way until he can take up Lavellan’s entire line of sight. “Go help Varric cook.”

“I am _not_ touching raw, dead, animal,” Dorian complains, but goes over to talk to Varric anyways. Lavellan’s pretty sure that they’re talking about him, but he can’t see or hear them because the Iron Bull is currently blocking his view of them and the fire.

“I can’t feel the warmth from the fire Bull,” he complains quietly. He never complains like he does with Bull, never lets his voice pitch into a whine unless he’s sure no one else can hear. He doesn’t think anyone else would put up with him, he’s surprised that Iron Bull does.

Cole and probably hear, he’s hovering somewhere behind them, but he would hear anyways. He doesn’t need ears to hear.

Iron Bull runs a thumb over his cheekbone before shifting off to the side to sit beside Lavellan without goring him in the side with one of his horns. “You’re freezing,” Iron Bull tells him, looking up at him with what could be concern on his face.

“I’m f—“

“No lying,” Iron Bull tells him in _that_ voice with a hand wrapping around his calf and squeezing slightly.

Lavellan shivers, but it’s not the cold this time. He feels a warmth spread from Bull’s hand, he wants more. But not _in front_ of everyone. He repeats that, quietly, so hopefully nothing except Iron Bull’s ears and Cole’s heart can hear.

Iron Bull sighs. “Do you need to see a healer or not? We can keep moving tonight, the next Inquisition camp isn’t that far.”

“Bull, everyone is exhausted. We just took down a dragon. We need to sleep through the night, not travel,” Lavellan tells him, looking down at him. It feels weird to look down at him, like they’re in the wrong position.

“Do you need to see a healer, or _not_?” Iron Bull asks him, his voice turning into a growl of frustration. It sounds like he’s gritting his teeth.

Lavellan glances up, makes sure that Varric and Dorian are paying attention to whatever they’re doing on the other side of the fire, leans forward, and takes hold of one of Iron Bull’s horns to angle him into a kiss.

The warmth that Iron Bull’s lips leave on his is nothing like the cold that his leave on Iron Bull’s.

“I’m fine, Bull,” Lavellan whispers.

“Worried. Why is he so cold? Why—“

“Thank you Cole,” Iron Bull interrupts, cupping Lavellan’s cheek.

Lavellan pulls away, stares back into the fire. He’s still cold, even with the blanket, the jacket, the gloves, the fire.

He wants to curl up in Iron Bull’s arms because _he_ is warm, and even if it wouldn’t cure the lump of cold at his centre, he wants an excuse to be close to him. He can’t be close to him when he’s travelling with other people too. He just can’t.

So they spend the rest of the evening with distance between them. Even if Cole spouts incredibly intimate details about their relationship, perhaps _because_ of it, he can’t. Even if it would be warm. Even if he wants to melt the lump of cold.

They eat the dinner that Varric prepares, he lets Cole fret over him and mutter ‘still cold’ several times, and then they prepare to sleep for the night because he _insisted_ that they don’t travel through the night.

Varric tells him sternly, “We’re heading out early. You _need_ to see a healer.”

“That’s if he doesn’t _freeze_ overnight,” Dorian grumbles from across the fire.

“Oh come on now,” Lavellan jokes, but he shivers. “I’ll be fine.”

Iron Bull huffs. Lavellan feels like a second lump of cold has settled in his stomach.

He looks up, Iron Bull looks down, Varric finds his way around the fire to his bedroll. Iron Bull shakes his head slightly, but his lips pull up at the side and Lavellan _needs_ to kiss him. He doesn’t.

He turns away from the magnetism which is The Iron Bull, and climbs into his bedroll feeling like he’s a piece of glass. The cold is starting to hurt, the ground is harder than he remembers it. He hears Iron Bull climbing into his own behind him, somewhere.

Cole sits next to Lavellan on the ground beside his bedroll.

“Why can’t you…sleep next to him like you want to? Sink into the heat, the warmth, stay there, free. Why can’t you be free?”

Lavellan shivers. Dorian was right the ground is cold.

“Cole,” Lavellan whispers. “Have you ever been the Inquisitor before?”

“No,” Cole replies, missing the sarcasm. “The Inquisitor is your job…it’s… Armies, spies, people, so many people. They trust me, they need me. Too many people…” Cole turns to look at him slowly, his brows knitted together. “Help.”

Lavellan doesn’t know if he’s asking for help through Cole, or Cole is asking for help because he’s heard to deep.

Instead he chuckles. “Yeah, every day,” he mutters.

“And The Iron Bull helps you, but you only let him when you’re hidden away, behind walls and doors and drapes.”

Lavellan sighs. Cole is talking too loud, hopefully not loud enough that the others can hear over the fire, but _Iron Bull_ definitely can.

“Good night Cole,” he tells him, rolling on to his side like he’s really planning to sleep even though what he’s planning to do is shiver for several hours.

Cole simply tilts his head slightly and moves to stand. “Good night.” As he wanders over to his own bedroll Lavellan wonders if he sleeps.

The wonder goes away quickly though, and he instead focuses on trying to find heat in his blankets. He still has Cole’s gloves on his hands.

Cold.

Despite the effort to put enough wood on the fire to last until morning, the fire begins to sink and he misses its heat after a few short hours.

He shivers.

He hears Iron Bull shuffling behind him, assumes he’s rolling over, almost jumps out of his bed roll when a large, _warm_ , arm wraps around his hips.

“Bull!” he protests.

“I’m not going to let my kadan freeze while he’s within arm’s reach,” Iron Bull growls into his ear. It’s not quite _that_ voice, but it’s close enough that Lavellan shivers for that not cold reason again.

He rolls over, inadvertently cuddling close to Iron Bull and his warmth.

“You’re warm,” he whispers, pressing his forehead Iron Bull’s neck.

“And you’re freezing,” Iron Bull replies.

The hand that isn’t holding him close, square in the centre of his back, has found its way between them and is working on the straps of his coat.

“Bull, what are you doing?” He moves closer, haunches his shoulders half in an attempt to hold in some heat and half in an attempt to block Iron Bull’s fingers.

“The best way to warm up someone up is to share body heat.” Iron Bull tells him, successfully unbuckling a buckle on his coat.

He shifts away, reminded where they are, and who they are with, when the fire cracks loudly. “Not here,” his tone pleads.

Iron Bull growls under his breath, forces his hand up under Lavellan’s tunic, untucking it from his breeches and his potion belt. Lavellan gasps, not at the sudden movement or the force with which it’s done, but at the _warm_ suddenly directly over his chest where just seconds ago it was so _cold_.

“You are _freezing_ kadan,” Iron Bull whispers to him, watching him under furrowed brows in the dark.

He almost gives in, wants to feel the _feel_ of Iron Bull’s warm skin against his, but no. He can’t. He doesn’t want to be caught the next morning, the fact that he’s already giving in to the idea of Iron Bull sleeping practically on top of him is bad enough.

He groans softly, wrapping an arm around Iron Bull’s arm under his tunic. “Just stay close then,” he mutters.

“Please,” Iron Bull whispers to him, the first time that he hears the whine which is sometimes in his voice in Iron Bull’s.

He sits up on his elbow, purses his lips at Iron Bull and furrows his brow. “Are you worried?” He tries to joke, but Iron Bull’s expression is clearly serious even in the dark. “It’s just magic Bull, it’ll wear off, probably by morning.”

“Probably’s not good enough, boss,” Iron Bull growls.

Lavellan huffs, tugs out of Iron Bull’s hold and sits up properly, ignoring the ache to return to the warmth. His coat falls off of his shoulders as he sits up. He didn’t realise that Iron Bull had got so far with undressing him, he even managed to untie the tie on his tunic.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he snaps, feeling that twin lump of cold in his stomach again. If the three across the fire didn’t hear everything up until now, they heard that.

Bull sighs, and in one swift motion pushes him back into his bed roll, shifts on top of him and kisses him forcefully. Lavellan does a terrible job of hiding his moan, luckily it’s swallowed by Iron Bull’s _hot_ mouth.

“I’m _not_ going to let you freeze to _death_ half a metre away from me,” Iron Bull growls at him once their mouths separate.

Lavellan raises his brows at him, confused. Iron Bull doesn’t worry. He’s been knocked right out by things they’ve fought, and Iron Bull has been less than concerned.

“What, did you let Dorian’s doom talk get to you? You know he gets like that when he’s concerned.” The attempt to brush off Iron Bull’s concern ends with a look in Iron Bull’s eye that he’s never seen before. He frowns. “Bull, I swear, I’ll be f—“

“Stop saying that,” Iron Bull interrupts. “Humour me kadan, please.”

Lavellan frowns up at the man he loves more than anything in the world. If he could, if it wouldn’t mean the actual _end_ of the world, he would give him anything he wants. He wouldn’t drag him through ‘fade crap’ or make him live in a large castle when he’d rather be roaming the country side with his Chargers.

He’s not even really sure what Iron Bull wants. After a moment, thoughtfully tracing every line of Iron Bull’s face, he nods slowly. “Alright Bull, what do you want?”

Iron Bull’s features relax, he sits beside him, allows Lavellan to sit up as well. “I’ll pull my bedroll over,” he explains quietly. “We’ll share the blankets, and you’ll take off all those layers you’re wearing. I’ll keep you warm.”

Lavellan purses his lips, stares into the dying fire which isn’t even giving off light anymore. “I don’t want people to talk, Bull,” he mutters, even as he’s taking his coat off and setting it beside his bedroll.

“I don’t want to spend the rest of the night listening to your shivering, and I don’t want to wake up tomorrow to find whatever magic crap that dragon put on you _has_ frozen you,” Iron Bull tells him.

Lavellan looks up as Iron Bull stands, moving to pull his bedroll over. The few times that Iron Bull has shown genuine concern over his actions, like the first time he pulled out his spirit sword in the middle of battle, he’s managed to talk him out of caring as much…or at least he’s managed to talk him out of showing that he’s caring as much.

This time it doesn’t seem like he’s going to back down.

When Iron Bull returns mere seconds later, tossing the second blanket on to him, he offers him what he hopes is a grateful and reassuring smile.

“Alright Bull, come here.” He reaches up to him, but Iron Bull shakes his head slightly.

“Come on now, off with the rest of the clothes,” Iron Bull instructs him, hovering over him with his arms crossed until he gives in.

Lavellan takes off it tunic, throwing it at Iron Bull so that it lands over one of his horns and he has to fish it off while Lavellan hides from the cold outside and in under the blankets and shimmies out of his potion belt and breeches.

As he’s tugging both articles out of the blankets and setting them beside his bedroll Iron Bull tucks in behind him, dropping his tunic on top of his pile.

He’s _warm_ and Lavellan can’t help but snuggle up against him as big arms encircle him and tug him even closer. It’s a bit of a relief and a disappointment that Iron Bull had kept his pants on, but his chest is certainly warm enough and large enough to almost cover his entire body anyways.

If he ignores the fact that Iron Bull is wearing pants, and that there’s a hard ground beneath them, he could almost imagine they’re back at Skyhold and they’re in his bed. Except that chunk of frozen still hanging stubbornly in his chest, the rest of him feels warmer, and he thinks he can probably sleep like this.

They settle so that Iron Bull can sleep on his back, and Lavellan can tuck up against him as well as under the blankets. And they do sleep, Lavellan whispering a soft ‘I love you’ before drifting off and just missing Iron Bull’s ‘love you too kadan’ before he drifts off as well.

Morning comes quickly, mostly because he sent so much of the night shivering on his own. He sleeps, but he wonders how on earth Iron Bull slept with a very cold elf tucked into his arms the whole night.

Then, of course, comes the rest of the party waking and finding them sleeping. Or, he was sleeping, and Iron Bull was holding on to him and attempting to hush the others’ waking.

“Don’t worry about it,” Varric tells him with a dismissive hand gesture as he pulls on his breeches and his face turns red. “We used to find Hawke and Fenris in all sorts of compromising positions and neither of _them_ ever had the excuse of ‘the elf is frozen’.”

Lavellan huffs. Iron Bull is so calm about it all, putting both of their bedrolls back together.

Dorian, clearly trying to pretend they didn’t just find him almost naked in the same bedroll as Iron Bull, hovers and asks, “How’re you feeling?”

“Cold,” he replies, tugging on Cole’s gloves again and tucking his coat around him. Despite being snuggled up to Iron Bull all night he’s still freezing.

“Right, no pause for breakfast then, you need to see that healer,” Dorian decides, returning to his side of the dead fire to pack up his bedroll as well.

As they’re heading out into the forest again, in the direction of the Inquisition camp, Cole walks beside him. He’s taking up the rear, with Iron Bull leading for the time being, and Cole seems to be guarding him.

“He was worried,” Cole tells him quietly. “And you let him worry, he likes that. He likes that you let him worry.” He offers Cole a slightly forced smile and Cole continues, “He wants to help, you know. He wants to be what comes when you think you’re saying it into the dark. ‘Help’.”

“I…I know Cole,” Lavellan replies softly, trying to keep the conversation between them though he thinks Varric is listening in.

“He didn’t like that he couldn’t see what was hurting. He couldn’t look and tell if you were going to be okay,” Cole explains. He nods, and then shivers slightly. “The man at the camp can fix it. He has magic, soft like dew, and he has plants too.”

Lavellan feels relieved at that, if there’s anyone’s vague premonition he can trust it’s Cole’s. “Thank you Cole, I feel better knowing that I’m not going to arrive at the next camp and immediately freeze to death.”

Cole smiles, just a bit at the corners of his mouth. “The Iron Bull feels better knowing that too.”

Lavellan looks forward to see that Iron Bull has slowed his pace so that he is just in front of them, Dorian appears to be leading for a moment.

“How’re you doing kadan?” Iron Bull asks softly, running just the tips of his fingers over his forehead and through the front of his hair.

Lavellan smiles at him. “I think I’m feeling better, thank you for…last night,” he says, his expression turning shy for a moment.

Iron Bull smiles at him. “Any time, I’m good for more than just tying you up and fucking you until you can’t walk straight you know.”

Lavellan makes a face, smacking Iron Bull’s chest. “Not here,” he warns, though there’s a slight playfulness in his tone. He trudges up the path to Dorian, throwing an affectionate look over his shoulder at Iron Bull as they continue on.

Maybe it was a good thing he was hit by the dragon.

He shivers.

But, maybe he’ll try harder not to get hit next time.


End file.
